


Cannibals and a bitter taste

by Moonshine_Givens



Category: Justified
Genre: Ava and Boyd are just mentioned, M/M, Slash, first fic i publish EVER, i was writing a happy fic then this happened, it was an accident i swear, oh and none of the boys die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-03
Updated: 2012-12-03
Packaged: 2017-11-20 06:27:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/582288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonshine_Givens/pseuds/Moonshine_Givens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or three times Raylan trusted Boyd his most valuable possession and one time Boyd did the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cannibals and a bitter taste

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! This is my first ever fanfiction. It's a lot sadder then I was hoping, but I cannot control my feels over Justified any longer. English is not my first language, and Rio de Janeiro is so very far from Kentucky, so please forgive any mistakes. I hope you enjoy, and any feedback you wanna give is gold! All thanks to my great friend Lara, who was my fantastic beta.

His secrets

He was a bad student, the Givens boy, but the teachers would cut him some slack. His father was a drunk and a criminal and an abuser. The kid was not going to be a rocket scientist, so his grades could be less than average. Really, why would anyone keep the boy in school, rotting on a chair just to get that useless degree and become a low life like his father?

Besides, his mother was dying. A bad grade was unnecessary, since God seemed to have decided the boy should have a bad life.

***************

It was still the school’s hours – he should have been in History class, or maybe Literature: he could never tell these days.

But his mother was dying, so these days – these days – he could just walk right out of class and the teachers wouldn’t say a word. Besides, he was the Givens boy. As if any Givens ever needed Literature.

So he was lying on the grass right behind the school in the middle of a school day. Any student, any teacher, any one that bothered to look over the windows would see his body on display, exposed boneless against the bright green. He was all flesh; dirty, heavy flesh, burning under the sun: no muscle, no bones, no strength to keep him standing. Raylan could just melt under that blinding sun. He felt he was waiting for a predator to bite on all that flesh, all that skin; he was something defenseless and weak. Or maybe he was like the meat on a butcher’s house, hanging there, motionless, the next meal.

No one looked.

Then a shadow and a movement. Someone to eat him alive. All that teeth, and all that strength, the predator had finally come. Raylan could not move.

“Boyd, my momma is dying.”

It had been a secret, not because no one knew – everyone knew – but because it wasn’t something he had been ready to say out loud. And now it was out there, now it was alive, now he trusted this horrible secret to the predator with the sharp teeth.

Boyd was not a friend: Boyd was the Crowder boy, Boyd was the son of daddy’s partner, and sometimes Boyd was a smile on a class that made his knees go weak and his heart stop for all the wrong reasons. They both knew: when they looked across the room, in the school or in a party or (God forgive) in the church, they both knew the smile they shared was too intimate, too much. But they kept going, and then Raylan’s momma was dying, and there weren’t smiles any longer.

That he would trust another secret to Boyd – with words, and not a secret made of smiles – was to offer himself as prey. Those sharp teeth would break his skin.

Boyd just laid on the grass, no elegancy or care, just gravity and flesh in a pile of denim and plaid. He laid there, in silence. Boyd, can you imagine that? A silent Boyd, no lies or half trues. Not a bite or a bark, two secrets hiding under the sun.

 

His life

Raylan could never retell those minutes without messing with the hows and the whens. Sometimes he thinks the first thing to happen was Boyd calling his name, a shouted “Raylan” so urgent that could only mean they were about to die. Sometimes he thinks that the first thing he felt was the earth shaking under his fingers, then his feet, and when he turned to look at Boyd, he could already feel it shaking all around him.  
Sometimes he remembered feeling Boyd’s hand on his shoulder, on his arms, on his hands, and then they were running, running, running…

Those crushing fingers hurting and pulling, dirt biting into the skin, the gloves too thick between them, the ground shaking like thunder, Boyd calling his name…

He could never remember which came first.

And after all that, you’d think that that single moment in the mine was the moment that Raylan trusted his life. Not really. In the mine, holding Boyd’s hand, Raylan trusted his bones, his pumping blood, the air inside his lungs. Eyelashes and fingernails, the spit in his mouth, his birthmarks and scars – he trusted Boyd with all that, and not just in the mine, but every night they could escape into the woods. He already knew Boyd could be trusted with his body. So no, Raylan’s life wasn’t just that.

To live is not just to survive, after all.

No, Raylan trusted his life hours later, when he called Boyd and asked to meet behind Helen’s old house. In those quiet hours, when the sky was already turning grey, and Raylan was still a bit drunk on moonshine and death, eyes red and tired, Raylan told Boyd about the money Helen gave him. The money that was still in an old backpack, the money he wasn’t quite sure he would take after all, the money that could mean a change. What could he do with it? What should I do, Boyd?

“You should live.” Boyd had whispered, and then louder “You should leave.”  
It wasn’t a mistake, the first one, because Boyd never made mistakes with words. Only with acts. But this time, Raylan knew Boyd was going to make it right, because Raylan trusted him with his future, his life.

Boyd was going to save the boy, twice in the same day.

He didn’t kiss Raylan. Instead, he grabbed the backpack and pushed Raylan to the car. “You gotta go now, Raylan, before your daddy finds out ‘bout the money and then you’ll have to kill him just to get out of the house. He’s drunk still, so you have the time to grab some of your stuff, but you should go before dawn. C’mon boy, go!”

His life, he trusted Boyd to decide if he should live it.

 

His child

Life wasn’t a Bruce Willies movie, even when you’re a US Marshal. Mostly, life was about doing your job the best you can, and listen when your boss tells you about his daughter’s boyfriend, or doing Tim’s paper work today so he could do yours Friday. Maybe shooting some bad guy once or twice, or – if he was feeling truly bold – pissing Rachel off. A guy must find excitement to his life, after all.

So you’re not always in danger. This isn’t Die Hard. Most US Marshal live long, somewhat prosper lives; have wife and kids, a house in the suburbs. Maybe a dog. Being a US Marshal doesn’t mean your life is a mess, or that you can’t have a family, that you’ll ruin and destroy and endanger everyone you love just for being around.  
That’s just Raylan.

He already knew that was the dealers M.O. – catching their enemie’s family just so they would back off. More often than not, they would go already with their threats and kill someone’s wife and child, just to see that guy ruined.  
He warned Boyd. He had told him to stay away, to not try and fight for territory with those guys, because they wouldn’t come waving guns at him, they would come for Ava. In the end, Ava made the choice: she said she was ready, that she wanted to fight, and went herself to face the damn dealers.

Raylan would see Boyd’s bloodied hands every time he closed his eyes, the blood running and dripping, blood and blond hair.

The pain of losing Ava brought red anger to both of them, as everyone knew it would. Raylan decided enough was enough, he could not stand out and watch. Ava was dead – wonderful gorgeous dangerous difficult tough damaged glorious Ava, lying on the floor, blood and blond hair, red stains on a pink dress, blood on gold curls, dead and bloodied.

So he went for them, Boyd by his side. No one to stay by Winona’s side, or  
by his child side.

Now who would think that those hillbilly drug dealers would dare to touch the son of an US Marshal? Who?

Raylan thought there was no blood left on him to keep him going. His son, his boy, his child, his baby, his blood – killers, they were killers, and they had his son, his blood, that small fragile thing.

There was only one person left that he could trust, because everyone else could understand, but only Boyd knew: it was now about blood, about a woman and a child.  
So when they finally got there, when they finally found the drug dealers’ place, Raylan could only see the blood being spilled: he was worried in the killing. He wanted to destroy and end every single one. It was red violence, it was about drinking from the jugular.

He wasn’t the one to find his child. It was Boyd who did it, came from a room on the back carrying that small, fragile thing in his arms, as careful as if he was carrying one of his explosives. When Raylan got to them, there was so much blood – red and dark and black and dripping – and the thought that this was it, they were too late, too late, death, almost chocked him.

But them he could hear crying, and nice lungs still working. Boyd gave him his child, alive and screaming, and passed out on the floor, dirty and bloodied, ready to rest.

 

His heart

It was a few days later. When he walked up the stairs to his apartment, the taste of the whiskey from downstairs still on his mouth, Boyd was sitting against his closed front door, a book between his hands.

He looked tired and desperate, he looked an image of death and mourn, and he looked like a man who had loved Ava only to lost her, and never rest again.  
For a moment it seemed to Raylan that Boyd was chocking again on that bullet he once put through his chest. And then Boyd read:

“‘In the desert I saw a creature, naked, bestial, who, squatting upon the ground, held his heart in his hands, and ate of it. I said, ‘Is it good, friend?’ ‘It is bitter – bitter,’ he answered; ‘But I like it because it is bitter, and because it is my heart.’”  
He looked up, sharp teeth and big eyes, and he was an old animal that would always try to bite, even on his own flesh.

“I’m tired of eating my heart Raylan. I cannot chew on it, and I cannot swallow it, my throat is closed and my chest is empty, I cannot eat it anymore. I’m not even sure I can hold it in my hands any longer. What should I do with my heart, Raylan?”  
Looking into those huge eyes, Raylan thought Boyd looked insane and dramatic. And he should had told him that all the drama in the world wouldn’t save his soul, that the taste was bad because he was a bad man, evil as the ink in his arm. That Ava was gone because he was once again acting wronging, and making the wrong decisions with the right words. Raylan should had told him that his heart was bitter but his mind was lost, and that he couldn’t do anything about that.

But the thing was – Boyd was lost. When he was lost, Boyd would look for Raylan, as if Raylan held a compass, a map, a light to guide him. Boyd was trusting him his heart, because the weight was finally too much.

(let’s talk inside, Boyd)

So he took a bitter heart, touching it with firm fingers, since delicacy might break it. His lips against the pulsing heart, an ugly scar of an unfinished battle over it. When Raylan swallowed the heart, it burned his tongue, his throat, his own heart, a poison going down his chest, acid on his lips. But he would not, for the world, stop biting on it, because he liked it, because it was bitter, and because it was Boyd’s heart.

**Author's Note:**

> The poem Boyd reads is called "In the desert", by Stephen Crane. You wanna reach me, my tumblr is ohthati.tumblr.com !


End file.
